Living with artificial turf

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It's November 9th here at The Tropical Paradise in Glendale, Arizona (a suburb of Phoenix) and the weather is just glorious. I have been listening to an audiobook on my iPad and drinking my decaf coffee, which is a wonderful way to spend a Sunday morning.

But all around me I can hear the sound of lawnmowers and edgers. Yesterday I saw a huge plume of dust kicked up in my neighbors yard. And I reminded at how happy I am with my artificial turf.

I had it installed seven years ago, and it's the best thing I've ever done here. Obviously it never requires watering, or mowing, or trimming, and it looks great, even close up. I've had people visit me and walk on it who had to reach down and touch it to believe that it was plastic.

When I first bought this house, many years ago, I did the whole complex *over-seeding* thing, which is awful. You have to buy a bag of seed, cover it up with some kind of stinky topping, and keep it soggy wet until the grass sprouts. It attracts about a million birds, and it really doesn't look good until you've mowed it a few times. If you don't over-seed, of course, your Bermuda grass will turn brown as it goes dormant for the winter. And brown grass isn't something that I care to look at during the months of the most beautiful weather in the world.

OK, I'm going back out there now to enjoy this beautiful morning. And no lawn-mowing for me!

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